'The Purple Haze'
By Gary Richardson
Copyright Gary Richardson 2012
All Rights Reserved
Cover Zombie from Clker.com
Cover by Gary Richardson
This book is dedicated to
childhood memories.
Time can never take those away.
Special thanks to my awesome wife
Chapter 1
It was around 3pm when the van came around the corner to Hough Lane. Steadily, it crawled to a stop and parked up by the foot path. In the front, two men were looking across the road at their potential prize, a bank, still open to the public, but at its most vulnerable part of the day. Any part time staff had departed to collect their children from school, and any customers had also given up on getting to the bank for those last minute deposits and withdrawals, deciding instead on leaving them until the following day. The only issue for the men now would be the remaining staff and what few members of the public would remain inside. The two men looked at each other, gave a silent nod and turned to look in the back of the van. Four more men sat there on the floor, all looking through the bags they had brought with them.
One of the men, Martin, a stocky man with close cut hair, raised his head and looked at the men in the cab. “OK you two, in here now,” he said. The two men obeyed and climbed into the back. Martin looked around at his team, all professionals in their line of work, but this was the first time they had tried to pull a bank job. Shops and fast food places had become too small for them. There just simply wasn't enough money to be made from those places any more. The fact that fast food places had started accepting cards for payments members of the public no longer carried much cash around with them. The team had discussed the alternatives, and the only thing they could rely on to make a good enough score was a bank. As he observed the looks on their faces, Martin thought about the fact that this would be the last job they pulled together. It wasn't the life he had picked for himself, but although in a sadistic way he liked being a thief, he would not miss it. The first score he made was a house job. Aged just fifteen he broke into a house two miles from his home and made off with a hundred and fifty pounds cash and over a hundred pounds in gadgets and gizmos of the time. Twelve years later, he was still hooked on the rush but, like a drug addict looking for the next big hit or an alcoholic looking for a new extra strength special brew, he needed a bigger game. He knew, though, that this was the peak. There would be no showing his face again after this. If his sources were correct, he would be making off with half a million for himself, easily enough to give this life up. Of course he would have to distance himself from the public eye and his fellowship of thieves, but he would live a modest life never having to work again.
The time was drawing near. He had to make sure things were ready to play out. He looked at his men again, one by one in the eyes. He could read their faces. He knew they were hungry for this. “OK lads, you know the drill. Let's do this,” he said.
All six men moved in unison, a procedure they were used to performing. At once they all pulled matching navy blue boiler suits out of their bags and put them on. At once, they all took out the matching Rorschach patterned stockings to be placed over their heads. They were a brilliant piece of kit, as the masks prevented easy identification. When the police asked for eye witness reports, they couldn't get any two descriptions of the masks matching.
Next, they checked their weapons. Each man's weapon was accustomed to him depending on the job he had. Conner's role was crowd control, so he was armed with an M4 assault rifle, a gun so recognisable that even a random member of public could easily identify it and be instantly terrified by the sight of it. Also on crowd control was Gaz, armed with a Mac 10 sub machine gun. The smaller gun made it possible for him to move among the crowd and get closer to them. Colin and Dave were assigned to handle the staff. They carried semi-automatic pistols so they could easily navigate corridors and still push an uncooperative staff member along. As a getaway driver Pete only kept a small .38 revolver in the glove compartment of the van. This was his back up should they get cornered and have to make a stand. Martin carried his old and trusty double barrelled shotgun with the barrel and stock sawed down. As the spokesperson of the team, he needed the gun with the loudest bang for putting the frighteners into the crowds before he addressed them, but also the gun that was capable of making the most mess of a person in case he had to make an example of someone. Thankfully, he had never had to do that, but he knew if he was put in a situation where some over confident, mouthy member of the public was going to cause a scene that would get him caught, he wasn't going to take the chance.
The men all loaded up their guns and Pete took his position in the driver's seat of the car. 'Okay, ready,' Martin thought, and opened up the back of the van. The men got out, quickly but calmly. Colin closed the door to the van behind him and they started across the street. As they walked that short walk, Martin went over everything in his head one more time. His sources inside would have knocked the surveillance cameras out of commission so the feed would not be picked up by any third party security company who could tell the police. The staff behind the counters would be minimal, two on the desks and one in the office. The only uncertain factor was the number of civilians inside. As soon as they were in, Colin and Dave would jump over the counter and stop the staff from triggering the alarm, also preventing the security screens and door locks from activating. Gaz and Conner would herd the public up to the back of the bank, then Martin himself would fire his gun into the air, instantly silencing any panic and getting the full, fear ridden attention of the people inside. They were only to refer to each other as numbers. He was one, Conner was two, Gaz was three, Colin four and Dave five. The whole job had to be done in five minutes. They approached the door and went inside.
Like race hounds out of the gates, the men leapt into action. As he looked around, Martin saw that his source was correct. There were two men behind the counter, and one woman in an office to his right. Colin and Dave were over the counter and taking one man each, pushing them back against the wall with their guns in their faces. He saw Gaz and Conner gather up what civilians there were, only two of them, a young couple probably only aged about twenty. Once Gaz had them at the back, Conner pulled the woman from her office and threw her to the ground next to the couple now kneeling against the wall at the back of the bank. Martin quickly turned the bolt to the door and knocked off the light switches for the row of lights running width ways in front of the door. He looked around at the situation. The crowd were being handled, the two staff members were being marked by Colin and Dave. Everything had gone better than he could have possibly imagined. The public looked panicked but weren't struggling in any way and the employees were doing exactly what they should have been doing. Now they were in the control of the robbers, they were cooperating and doing exactly as they were told.
From the second they entered the bank Martin had counted subconsciously how long things took, and he counted forty five seconds to gain control of a bank. Now they were in control, he had to get the second phase under way. He looked across at Colin and Dave. “Four and Five, take them two to the vault. Two and Three keep your eyes on those people.” Martin looked across the street to Pete in the van and gave him the thumbs up. Pete responded with four fingers to show they had four minutes left.
“Take us to the vault!” Colin ordered as he and Dave pushed the two men ahead of them. The men led them down some corridors and through some doors. All the corridors looked the same, with a blue patterned carpet and off white walls running throughout. They came to the vault and ordered the two men to open it. Behaving as they knew they would, the two men unlocked the huge and heavy metal door and led them in.
Inside the vault, three huge blocks of cash wrapped in plastic, totalling one million pounds each, sat on big metal tables waiting to greet them. The walls, lined with smaller deposit boxes that had reflective surfaces, made the sight somewhat even more magical. Colin began to bag up the blocks, pulling large bags made over them, then, one by one, he then flipped the bags over and zipped them up. He handed one to Dave and one each to the staff members with them. “Take us back to the front,” he ordered them. As expected they obeyed.
In the front of the bank, the rest of the team were still carrying their respective roles, with Gaz and Conner keeping a watchful eye on the civilians and Martin overseeing the whole thing. Seconds earlier, Pete had signalled to Martin that they had three minutes remaining. Martin was getting impatient. It wasn't that he was scared; he just didn’t like it that time was so tight. He would have been so angry to be caught out on his final job, the one that would give him, financially, a worry free life. He heard a door click and turned to see the two members of staff returning, closely followed by Colin and Dave. He saw they had the bags and based on the way the three carrying them were slightly buckling underneath the weight, he knew his source had come through for him. They had three million pounds in cash, half a million each. He gave the thumbs up to Pete who then started the engine to the van. He looked back and saw Dave put his bag on top of the counter and climb back over. Dave turned back to take the bags off the bank staff. Whilst watching this, the young woman crouching with her partner, who had been stifling whimpers throughout her ordeal, cried out suddenly, causing everyone to turn. Martin looked and saw she was just scared, but gave a nod to Gaz who thrust his gun barrel in her face and ordered her to be quiet.
Unseen to everyone in this moment, one of the bank staff behind the counter managed to quickly move his hand to the counter, pressing the alarm button. Quicker than it took the team of robbers had managed to get the building under their control, the control was now gone. The screens for the counter rose up in a flash, and the high pitched ringing of the alarm blared through the whole room. Behind the screens, Colin was completely confused and bewildered by what had just happened and seeing this, one of the bankers tried to rush him. In his suddenly alerted and panicked state, Colin reacted defensively, and firing three shots from his pistol, hit the man square in the chest. He slumped to the ground dead. The incident seemed to happen in slow motion for Collin, and upon seeing what he had done, his spirit began shrink inside him. He turned the gun on the other man. “Get on the floor!” he screamed in a shrill, scared voice. The man, now looking completely sick and afraid at the sight of his dead colleague, shakily fell to his knees and put his hands behind his head.
Back in the main room, Martin was trying to keep his cool in the situation. He could see that Gaz and Conner were trying to keep a clear head and control the crowd of civilians, but at the same time their body language matched his. They were confused and afraid. How could this have happened? Martin looked out the front and saw that Pete was sliding the van into gear. He saw him remove his mask and set off down the road, in the very fashion that he had been ordered to do so when the men returned to the van, calmly and nonchalant as thought they had nothing to do with the bank. “Hey!” Martin yelled and tried to open the door. It wouldn't open. He turned the bolt to the unlocked position. It still wouldn't open. He realised the electronic security locks had kicked in. He fired his gun at the glass. The glass vibrated under the impact but it was no good, the bank was fitted with bullet proof security glass. They were trapped, and there was no way out for them. The sight of the glass holding back both barrels from a sawed off shot gun worried Gaz. “One, what the hell are we going to do?!”
Martin knew this was it. No way out for him or his men, no retirement, no tax free modest life without financial strain, just a long jail term in a high security prison, and then came the sound he feared the most. The sound of police sirens, and lots of them, and he knew they were coming for him.
* * *
Before any alarm bells rang, Mike Heys was carrying out his stint for the day as a police community support officer. Unbeknownst to him at this time, a bank robbery had gone wrong just two streets away. He went about his business in the way he normally would. He would talk to the public, take suggestions of what needs to be done in the community and, at this time of the day, keep the children safe as they left the local primary school. Not that he had the training or authority to tackle anything severely dangerous, but the sight of a police uniform made the children feel safe, and he felt good knowing that they felt safe. Although it was voluntary, this was his favourite job. On the days he was on duty, he left work as a warehouse operative after a mid-morning shift and looked forward to pulling on the uniform. This felt good to him, and it felt right. He wanted to be a full time constable, but government cuts and fierce competition for acceptance in the constabulary had kept him out.
Outside the primary school, he saw the usual sights, such as the large amount of traffic slowly moving down the road delayed by the lolly pop lady letting the children safely across. He saw kids, excitedly running from the gates to meet their parents and show them the art projects they had worked on in class. He got the usual attention, too. Many of the kids knew who he was, and they would always ask the same questions, “Did you arrest anyone today?” or “Did you hit anyone with your club today?” He always wondered how they would react if he was to say yes. That was if it had even happened for him to be able to say yes. The truth was, he had never arrested anyone and never had to hit anyone with anything, let alone a club. He had never come close to seeing anything dangerous whilst on duty. He felt if the moment presented itself, he could handle it. Some days he prayed for it. At least he would be contributing to what he felt was actual police work.
It was while he was getting this attention from the kids he heard a select few words over his radio. He had to listen hard, but he was sure he caught “robbery”, “progress” and “lane”. He turned away from the children and turned the volume up. He listened harder this time. “Bank robbery in progress on Hough Lane, all local cars and officers please attend.”
His heart jumped. This was what he had waited for. An opportunity to contribute to public safety and Hough Lane was only two streets away. “Sorry kids, I have to go,” he politely told them and then started to move through the crowd. Ideas rushed through his head. He had done this job for two years and now he was on his way to a bank robbery. He moved clear of the crowd and picked up the pace. At age thirty two, he was still young enough and perfectly capable of looking out for himself. He worked out regularly and took part in combat sports. He imagined, almost in a childish fantasy, taking down a criminal with a judo throw, or disarming a gunman with a quick swipe of his baton. Without realising it he was running now. He just wanted to get there.
He heard the sound of police sirens about two hundred yards from the turning into Hough Lane, and as he turned the corner he saw them coming. Eight police cars, three of which were armed response units. The sight caught him unawares and knocked some of the wind out of his sails. He had wanted this kind of action since he took the job, but now that he saw so much police presence in one place, he couldn’t be sure he wanted it anymore. “Jesus this is serious” he thought. He slowed to a jog and approached the scene. The cars all came to a halt. Two parked on the road in front of the bank, one parked at each end of the street blocking it off to any other traffic and the other vehicles assembled across from the bank. Mike ran to the car nearest to the armed response units. He ran to the men getting out. The insignia on his shoulders told him he was the inspector. “Is there anything I can do to assist?” he asked.
“Go to the west end of the street to help manage crowd control and redirecting traffic. We can handle this here.” Mike responded and began quickly walking to the west end of the street. As he went, he took a look around at what was happening. He saw the armed response officers, armed with the standard issue MP5 semi-automatics, moving in to create a perimeter aro
und the building, two teams of three at the front, and one team of three heading around the back of the building to cover any possible escape path. As he looked at the front of the bank, he saw what he felt was very creepy and caused his skin to crawl slightly. A man of stocky build, dressed in a boiler suit and a very strange looking black and white symmetrical mask. He was looking out at the police, quite brazen really considering he would be facing three teams of armed response officers. He couldn't see his eyes, but he couldn't help but feel he was watching him specifically. It was under the supposed gaze of this man that he realised he wouldn't be any good in this scenario. He looked away and proceeded to the end of the street.
At the front of the bank, Inspector Myers looked at the situation ahead. He watched the armed officers take their positions and saw the other constables escort a few straggling members of the public away from the area. He waited for the area to be clear and turned to his second in command. “What do we know, Ken?”
“Unfortunately, sir, we don't know anything,” replied Ken, “it seems the CCTV systems were shut down sometime between two fifty pm and three pm. We don't how many convicts, hostages or what kinds of weapons they are carrying.”
“OK, get me the loud speaker,” ordered Myers. Ken passed him the loud speaker. Myers looked at the bank and saw the robber in the window. He figured opening up communications now wouldn't do any harm. He brought the loud speaker to his lips. “You are surrounded. Throw down your weapons and surrender yourselves. You have no way out.” He watched as the robber backed away from the window. He turned to Ken. “What's he doing?”
“Don't know sir,” replied Ken. They continued to watch and saw the robber return to the window. “He's back, sir. It looks as though he's holding something.”
The Purple Haze Page 1